Are There Any Guarantees in Publishing?

By Kim Dushinski - Aug 10 , 2007

I got an email today from an author with a strong request–he wanted me to get his book into airport bookstores. He was very anxious to hire me to do this for him. He made it clear that he was willing to pay for my services to do so. And he was equally clear that he would pay me only if I could guarantee him that I could make that happen.

Well, there are two things wrong with this request–

• First of all, I am not, nor have I ever been, in the business of securing distribution.
• Secondly, there are not many guaranteed services in publishing–and there are absolutely NO guarantees in the area of distribution.

This causes great frustration to new self-publishers who figure that there must be someone out there who will do all the marketing for their book in whatever capacity they request and who should guarantee results. This, in turn, causes great frustration to those of us providing valuable services to authors and publishers–because we simply can’t.

It is perfectly reasonable to request a guarantee for a product or service that is under the direct control of the person or company providing it. A book printer can certainly guarantee they will print a book to the exact specifications and quantity ordered. A book designer can promise to actually deliver a book cover design. A wholesaler can promise to list the correct information of book in their database so that bookstores can order it if they choose to do so.

But no one can guarantee bookstores will order a particular title. It is completely up to each individual bookstore buyer to decide whether or not to order any book for their store. In the proverb, “You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,” your book is the proverbial water and book buyers are the proverbial horse–and they cannot be forced to drink, or to buy your book.

There are plenty of interrelated services provided along the way that make it more likely a buyer will order your book, but none of the services guarantee placement on a particular bookstore shelf.

The bottom line is that authors want to be guaranteed that anything they hire someone to do for them will produce the exact result they want. However, the formula of a book’s success is a complex one. Each service provider along the way has to do their part correctly and in a timely fashion. And, ultimately, book buyers–both agents for bookstores and actual end-readers–have to respond favorably and have to actually buy the book despite the huge competition in the market.

That is simply too much for any one book industry service provider to guarantee. But we get asked to do so all the time.

My advice to an author or self-publisher who is seeking professional help with their book is three-fold–

1. Ask for the right help from the right people. Do not ask your publicist for distribution help. Likewise, don’t expect your distributor to get you booked on radio shows. If you don’t know what a particular company does, ask first. Then you can request a quote and ask for whatever guarantee they are willing to offer for their services.
2. Don’t ask for guaranteed services unless the outcome is 100% in the control of the company you are asking to guarantee the service. Not only will you not get the guarantee, you may not get help at all because this makes you look like an unsatisfied client waiting to happen.
3. Write and produce the very best book you possibly can. Make sure that your book does not in any way appear self-published. If your book appears to be anything less than professionally published, that makes the job of every service provider you work with all that much harder. It could even make your book unmarketable.

You can make a success of a self-published book. You can get help from highly ethical and hard-working service providers along the way. But the only real guarantee is that you must do your part to make it happen.